Statendam - General Report - Part II

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The tables and chairs in the card room are in bad shape. But they won't be replaced since the card room will be replaced with the Windstar Cafe next April when the ship goes into dry dock.

Some of the books in the library are in poor shape. You open them up and entire chapters fall out. Other books are brand new.

Newspapers - the ship never bought any for the library the entire cruise!

The Pinnacle Grill was very warm the first evening we ate there - the 4th night when we were on the ship and the air-conditioning was bad in many places. We ate lunch and dinner here a few times. All the meals were excellent and the service was great.

The entree that DH selected to eat one afternoon in the Pinnacle (lunch charge - $10 per person) was offered one evening: petite filet mignon with blue cheese crust, asparagus, red beet timbole and chateau potatoes. After studying the menus carefully, we discovered that nearly every lunch item was offered sometime during the cruise as an evening entree.

There must be a shortage of boards to place the menus on in the dining room. Each evening after the upper level diners ordered their meals, many of the menus were taken downstairs.

Dining room music - only on the 4 formal nights did the Moonlight Strings play - and then it was from 6 - 6:25. All the other evenings we had the player piano which could be heard only for a few minutes. Once everyone started talking you didn't even know the player piano was on. After awhile they just let it play through only 1 cycle. A couple of nights music was piped in - too loud - thanks heavens that lasted for only a few minutes.

There was music by the Lido pool - usually from 12:30 to either 1:30 or 2.

The Queen's Room is now a storage area - saw lots of big carts of dirty table cloths and napkins being stored there for a couple of days at a time.

Late night snacks were served from 11 PM to midnight.

Each evening a different kind of cordial was listed on the dessert menu for $3. These are not the type that are added to coffee. We tried a few of them - very good.

Remember a couple of years when you would walk into either the Ocean Bar or the Crow's Nest for cocktail hour and there would be a little card on the table indicating the evenings appetizers? On this ship, there is a page in the front of the bar menu book that is changed every day. It lists the drink of the day as well as the evenings appetizers.

When we were in Cabo, new pillows arrived for the beds. They are about 3 inches longer than the old ones. We like firm pillows and these were far from that. No wonder they put 5 pillows on the bed.

And about those new European mattresses! How long would you expect them to last? The new European mattresses were placed in the suites last spring. Ours had definitely lost the war. There were 2 distinctive grooves. That mattress is ready to be replaced and it is only 6 - 8 months old.

The gym - we had read a report about the poor condition of the equipment on this ship. Everything was in excellent working order when we got on the ship. There are 6 treadmills, 4 bikes, 2 rowing machines, 1 step master, and 8 different exercise machines with free weights. On Oct 30, 4 of the treadmills died. Three mechanics worked on them that afternoon - didn't get them to work. The next day a different group of men worked on them. By this time another treadmill died. By the end of the cruise only 4 treadmills worked. No one supervised the gym and 1 man was given the key to open the gym at 5:30 AM. When there was only 1 treadmill working, there was 1 lady who hogged it - she would stay on the treadmill for 1 1/2 hours - never gave anyone else a change to use the machine. She was very inconsiderate of others. Most of the mornings there weren't any towels out so everyone had to go to the pool and use those towels to wipe off the sweat.

Popcorn is still available for the movies. Bu most of the time it isn't fresh. The man working the Java Cafe makes up huge batches early in the morning and puts out so many bags for each movie.

The jogging track on sports deck has the all-weather surface and the track is only around the smoke stack. It takes something like 14 laps to run a mile.

There were a lot of wheel chairs and scooters on this cruise. And some of the scooters were the BIG ones.

There were lots of boys to help people with their trays in the Lido.

One day we noticed a table set up by the Lido Pool where you could buy the cruise menus - $9.95.

We thought the safes in the rooms (talking suites - don't know about the other cabins) were terrible. They are located under the dvd player and set far back in the cubboard. You use a key that looks exactly like your room key. Only difference is the safe key is marked in red while the room key is marked in blue. I had to use a chair and sit in front of the TV in order to be able to reach down and back to open and close the safe.

At one time or another we had elevators that weren't working - sometimes one foreward and one aft on the same days.

This is getting long and I am probrably getting close to that 10,000 limit, so I'll end for now.

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Thanks for the info KK. It reminded me of several things on the Maasdam. They also offered the menus for sale for $9.95. I was also very disappointed by the popcorn. Grab a bag once. It was cold, must have been sitting around for hours. Check several more times during the cruise. Each time the bag was cold.

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We thought the safes in the rooms (talking suites - don't know about the other cabins) were terrible. They are located under the dvd player and set far back in the cubboard. You use a key that looks exactly like your room key. Only difference is the safe key is marked in red while the room key is marked in blue. I had to use a chair and sit in front of the TV in order to be able to reach down and back to open and close the safe.

I agree the safes on the Statendam ( S cabins) are very difficult to reach. I didn't bother using it after I found it. I used the drawer that could be locked in the table next to bed.

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We have been on Statendam twice in the last year or so and found it very nice. As we are headed to Hawaii on it in February we are concerned after reading your posts. I understand hotel manager Frits Gehner is no longer on the Statendam. Perhaps they need to get him back onboard! He ran a great ship/hotel.

Gary

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We are doing the 15-day Hawaii cruise on the Statendam Dec 6th. I will report back when we return. I'm keeping my fingers/toes crossed that the major problems (like no a/c) get fixed before our cruise. Happy Sailing!

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"And about those new European mattresses! How long would you expect them to last? The new European mattresses were placed in the suites last spring. Ours had definitely lost the war. There were 2 distinctive grooves. That mattress is ready to be replaced and it is only 6 - 8 months old."

KK - what Suite were you in. Friends of ours are sailing on the Statendam in about a month's time and I do hope this isn't the same Suite that they booked. She has back problems and was looking forward to the new mattresses as I had told her that everyone was raving about how great they were.

Thanks.

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Can you still ask for the foam mattress pads or am I thinking of Princess? At any rate, you will think we are nuts, but we bring our own foam 'memory' mattress pad. DH and I have bad backs, it's the only way we can get a good night's rest on a cruise ship bed. Happy Sailing!

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We loved the mattresses on Zuiderdam and Maasdam. They were brands new when we used them on both those ships. I'm hoping ours will be in better shape than yours on our upcoming Veendam and Maasdam cruises.

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We asked and received the egg crate mattress when we were on the Prinsendam last month. They haven't the new beds as yet and this helped make our bed (which was very hard) comfortable and we slept well.